


The Waters Around You Have Grown

by chess_ka



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Awkward Conversations, Gen, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-26
Updated: 2014-01-26
Packaged: 2018-01-10 04:40:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1155188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chess_ka/pseuds/chess_ka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carlos just wanted a quiet drink. He didn't expect to have to have this conversation with Scoutmaster Earl Harlan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Waters Around You Have Grown

Carlos did not, as a rule, drink that much. He was unlikely to be found spending his evenings warming a barstool, gazing forlornly into a glass as he pondered whatever had gone wrong. His nature tended too far towards the optimistic for that to be much of an issue.

And yet, here he was. After yet another week of baffling, unworkable data, two near-death experiences, an encounter with the newly formed Whispering Forest that he preferred not to think about, and an email from the grant committee asking for some kind of results... well. Carlos felt that he was allowed to get overwhelmed _sometimes_.

So, he had dragged himself to The Jackalope, a bar just outside Old Town Night Vale where Ling, the pink-haired bartender, was keeping him well-supplied with gin-and-tonics. 

(In Night Vale, it paid to order transparent drinks, unless you were feeling particularly adventurous.)

The rest of the bar was empty, except for a hooded figure sitting at a corner table. It was emitting a low static frequency and bending forward to seemingly inhale the noxious green fumes its drink was giving off. Occasionally it would stir it with the brightly coloured cocktail umbrella. Still, Carlos supposed that Wednesday evenings didn't tend to be busy. People were probably still out and about howling at the void.

He hunched over the dimly lit bar and doodled absent-minded equations on a stained napkin with the aid of a cocktail stick and a packet of tomato ketchup. It wasn't too much to hope that inspiration would strike; some of the key 'Eureka!' moments of his PhD years had occurred after alcohol intake, often necessitating a tipsy dash across campus to the lab. Even this tried and tested method, however, was apparently not enough for Night Vale's lackadaisical approach to the fundamentals of physics.

He was considering calling it a night and hoping that things would look better in the morning- provided the sun deigned to rise - when someone sat on the barstool beside him and said, “Mr Scientist?”

Carlos had given up trying to get people to remember his last name, so he just looked up from his unworkable equations and squinted at the newcomer. “Yes?” He took the man in, trying to place his face to a name: he was Japanese, with a stocky build and a round, weatherbeaten face suggesting many hours spent in the desert sun. Carlos frowned, and then it came to him. “Scoutmaster Harlan, right? Sorry, I didn't recognise you without the, er, uniform.” He gestured vaguely at his own throat, to indicate the purple neckerchief the other man usually wore.

Harlan raised an eyebrow. “It's Earl,” he said. “And I don't live in the uniform, for the most part.”

Carlos looked down at himself and realised that he had, once again, failed to remove his labcoat. “Well. That makes one of us.”

A flicker of a smile passed over Earl's face. The creases around his eyes and mouth suggested that he usually smiled a great deal, and easily, but now he looked rather dour. Carlos wondered whether he was here to drown his sorrows; being in charge of Night Vale's children must be a taxing job, after all.

“Can I get you a drink?” he offered awkwardly. “You look like you need one.”

“No. I'll get it.” Earl raised a hand to get Ling's attention. “A double Librarian please, Ling. On the rocks.”

“Sure thing. You alright there, Earl?” Ling pulled some dusty bottles from below the bar. “I heard two of your boys are heading for Eternal Scout. You must be proud of 'em.” She poured out different measures from the unmarked bottles with a practiced hand, not even looking at what she was doing. The third arm probably came in very useful when mixing cocktails, Carlos reflected.

“They're doing great,” Earl agreed. “I can't talk about it much, though. The Council's getting edgy. Everything's under control, though!” He directed the last sentence in a raised voice to the potted plant by the wall. It rustled slightly and a faint voice called, “Got it, Earl!”

“Message received,” said Ling, tapping her nose with a forefinger as she added salt and paprika to Earl's drink. “Hope it goes well, though.”

“Thanks. Say, Ling, get Mr Scientist here another... whatever he's having.”

“What?” Carlos shook his head. “Oh, no. Thanks very much, but I was about to head back.”

“I want to talk to you. Have a drink.” 

Carlos blinked, surprised by the sudden sternness in the Scoutmaster's voice. He settled back into his stool obediently. “Um. Sure. Thanks. Er... what is it you needed to talk about? Anything that needs investigating?” He'd probably be able to fit a couple more investigations into his schedule. Probably.

“No, nothing like that.” Earl glanced around, then lowered his voice as he spoke not to Carlos, but to the grubby bartop in front of him. “It's about Cecil.”

“Cecil?”

“ _Yes_.” Earl sounded like he was gritting his teeth. “ _Cecil_. Don't act stupid, Mr Scientist.”

“I'm not, I – I just wasn't expecting -” Carlos trailed off helplessly as Ling set their drinks in front of them, then moved to the other end of the bar to begin polishing already clean glasses. “Sorry,” he said, unsure why he was apologising. “What, er, what about Cecil?” This didn't sound like it was some more harmless teasing about Cecil's crush on him.

Earl knocked back about half of his drink in one swallow, then heaved a sigh. His shoulders slumped minutely. “Sorry,” he muttered. “I shouldn't take it out on you, it's not your fault. Just... are you interested in Cecil?”

“What? Why – why would you think that?” Carlos' voice rose half an octave. He had been trying to keep his distance from Cecil, to be as professional as possible whenever he spoke to him, to ignore the little voice at the back of his mind pointing out that Cecil was charming, and kind, with lovely eyes and elegant hands and endearingly large, messy hair... he could not afford to get attached, not whilst he was only stationed here temporarily, with an important and expensive research project to manage.

“You call him a lot,” Earl said, looking up from the bar to glare at Carlos. “Ask his opinions, his advice.”

“His show is a really good way to get news out to people,” Carlos protested. “And I'm an Outsider: he knows things about this place that I don't! I get advice from other people too – Josie and Rico and the Wallabies. They just don't talk about it on the radio.” _And I ask Cecil, statistically, far more often._

“Well, look, if you're _not_ interested, then you need to _tell him_. He's a good guy, he'll back off.”

“I've made it pretty clear, surely.” _I'm not calling for personal reasons._ “And he's not done anything except gush on the radio. I can deal with that.”

“This isn't about you. It's about _him_.” Earl's hands were clenched tightly around his glass, knuckles stained white. “He'll respect you and your boundaries, but deep down he'll keep on _hoping_ , and every bit of attention you pay him adds to that. You'll hurt him, in the end. So. You should tell him you're not interested, and soon. Tell him you've got a boyfriend back home, if you have to. Hell, tell him you're not into dudes.”

Despite himself, Carlos laughed at that. “No one would _ever_ believe that I'm straight.”

Earl's mouth twisted in a grimace that could have been a smile. “Maybe not. But – tell him. Cos I'm telling you, Carlos: Cecil means a lot to m- to this town. It won't go well for you if you hurt him.”

It wasn't a threat. Just a statement of fact. 

“I don't want to hurt him. He's a good man. A friend.”

“Yeah,” Earl murmured, looking down again, his voice soft and far away. “He is.” His eyes suddenly looked overbright in the dimness of the bar, and understanding hit Carlos like a bolt of thunder.

“You're... close to Cecil?” he hazarded.

Earl smiled, small and weary, but genuine. “Not so much now. We were best friends as kids.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, well. Things change.”

“They do, yeah.” Not even the principles of gravity were staying the same. What hope was there for human relationships?

Earl sighed and drained his drink. “Well. I'd best be off. Eternal Scout trials start next week, got lots to do.” He tucked a few bills under his empty glass and climbed from his stool. “You remember what I said, okay? Cecil deserves the whole truth.” With that, Earl turned away and headed for the door, raising a brief hand to Ling.

Carlos bit his lip. If only he knew what the truth _was_. If he said anything to Cecil, he'd be ruling out a whole host of unexplored possibilities, and he wasn't sure he didn't want them to be explored.

“Earl?”

The Scoutmaster paused, hand on the doorknob. “Yeah?”

“I'm... I'm really sorry. That things changed.”

Earl didn't look back. The line of his shoulders was taut. “Yeah,” he said. “Me too.” 

He opened the door and strode out into the desert night, leaving Carlos with his unsolved equations and the possibility of change.


End file.
